04/11/06

Wins for UTRC at Henley Sculls Head

The women set the pace for Upper Thames Rowing Club’s entries in the Henley Scullers Head of the River and they pulled off wins in four categories. Caris Marsh won women’s Senior 3 sculls in the afternoon races, closely followed by Elise Cope who was second and Jennifer Hawkins fourth.

All three had joined up with Beth Jackson, who won women’s novice sculls and achieved exactly the same time as Caris of 14 min 15 sec, to make up a notably neat quadruple scull for the morning’s races. They sculled with great economy to win women’s Senior 2 quads.

Jo Unsworth, who is actually only twelve years old and was possibly the youngest competitor of the day, beat 31 other scullers to win women’s Junior 13 single sculls. Her time for the 3k course was 1 min and 30 sec faster than the sculler who came second and also faster than that of a number of senior men and women single scullers.

The composite double scull of Mary-Ann Chalmers (UTRC) and Victoria Wood (Henley RC and UTRC) entered as a Veteran ‘B’ crew (average age 36 years) and were given a 20 second handicap behind the Veteran ‘C’ entry (average age 40 years). Although they found this just a bit too much to make up over 3000 metres they were still the second fastest women’s double scull overall, less than 8 sec behind the winning women’s Elite double.

Other members of the Upper Thames junior squad performed above expectations with Olivia Boyce and Emma Wirt finishing second in women’s J14 double sculls and Daisy Hyde and Ellen Fairbairn fourth.